This is a trip report Don sent via email in a thread discussing this climb. I am reposting it here with his permission.
By Don Wargowsky
I think I came away from this trip with a little different view of the climb than Chris did [0]. Here are my thoughts:
before the trip Chris and I met with Bill Brose to pick his brain about the climb. when we asked bill what to expect and if he though we could do it he said "if you can climb 1000' of 60 degree ice and move for 20 hours straight then you can do it." he said to expect around 8 hours for the approach and around 8 hours on the face. I have a lot of respect for Bill and he is great on ice. so I was expecting to take 20 hours. I’d read trip reports with faster times, but they were usually locals or guides/rangers.
Living at sea level and only being able to climb 1-2 mountains a year I don't expect to set and speed records in the Canadian Rockies. for a local climber or ranger to climb the north face car to car in 10-14 hours is pretty common. but they live at an elevation 5000' above Pittsburgh and climb mountains the way we climb at Seneca.
Our first attempt was probably not the best idea. conditions were not good. I think we both knew when we left the car that we weren't going to make it up that night. It was good for acclimatization though. we did have a chance to do some real glacier travel which was a good experience. It was a fun night, but maybe not the best idea to climb that far when we wanted to make another try for the summit just 18 hours later.
summit day - things went well on the approach and glacier travel was pretty fast. Chris did a great job of breaking trail to the face. he was moving at a excellent pace even with steep slopes and post holing up to his knees in places. the glacier was amazing. the idea was to have Chris break trail to the face, then I would lead the face with us simulclimbing.
We expected to take 6-8 hours for the approach. It took us 7, so we were on track at this point.
I started to bonk toward the end of the approach though. I didn't realize it then, but the reason I was getting tired was the fact that I hadn't eaten since we started the glacier. yes, I’m an idiot. complete and total stupidity - forgetting to eat on a 20 hour climb. that was a HUGE mistake I would pay for later in the day.
I started up the face at a pace slower than I normally climb (lack of energy caused by not eating). I went up a couple pitches and brought Chris up. We agreed it would be faster/safer to pitch out the last 3-4 pitches. Chris lead at a good pace and we made pretty good time considering we were pitching it out. the face was amazing. even though I was bonking hard I enjoyed every minute of it. It was painful, but completely worth it. it took us 8 hours to do the face. Brose and several trip reports I’d read said the face would take about 8 hours. so we're still on track at this point.
The last pitch- this is were we got behind. It seems that Chris is taking 100% of the responsibility for getting us off route. I respectfully disagree. I was there, I saw other climbers go up the right route, and I made the decision to go up the wrong gully the same way that Chris did. I’m equally responsible. I don’t blame Chris. its amazing how you can convince yourself you're on route when you're obviously not.
Chris described the pitch well in his report. it was hard climbing , steep, and very loose. He did a great job of leading it. I know it took a lot of balls to lead it. the second rock step (in my opinion) was more than 15 ft. I would say more like 20-25, but other than that I agree with Chris's description.
For most of the pitch Chris was out of my sight. it was raining ice, snow, and small rocks every few minutes. around an hour after Chris started the pitch a rock about the size of a basketball came flying down and hit my left hand/arm. I knew immediately that something was broken. I started to pull of my glove and pull back my sleeve fully expecting to see a compound fracture.
I generally handle pain well, but this is the most pain I’ve felt since I cut off my thumb. When I finally got the glove off I could see the injury. It wasn't as bad as I expected. some bleeding, it was already turning green, and was swelling very badly. I put the glove back on immediately, I knew that I couldn't do anything about it right then and it would soon swell to the point that I wouldn't be able to get the glove back on. My first thought was to go down, but soon realized that at this point it would be better to go up and walk off than to try to down climb or rappel the route.
I tried to yell to Chris, but communication wasn't possible. I waited for what seemed like forever and Chris wasn't moving (I later found out this was when he was looking for a good anchor which took approx. 1 hour)I began to think that Chris may have been injured by the same rockfall that had hit me and began to consider soloing up to find him. I made myself wait. The last thing I wanted to do was fall and drag us both down the mountain. i knew i wouldn't exactly be climbing at my best with a broken hand. so i stayed put, hung from the anchor, and shivered.
Roughly 2 hours after chris started the pitch the ropes finally came tight. I broke down the anchor and started to move. i let the leash on my left tool sinch down hard on my wrist. It hurt like hell but not as much as trying to grip the tool. i couldn't swing my left tool so i would chip a hole with my right tool then lean against the ice and use my right hand to place the left tool in hole. I'd let the leash clamp down on my wrist and let it hold my body weight (this isn't the fastest way to climb ice). This was my first real experience with mixed climbing and dry tooling. as much as it hurt to climb i couldn't help but think about how great the climbing was. Then i got to the second rock band. i believe my exact words were "wholey f***, you've gotta be F***ing kidding". steep rock, roughly 25ft of loose 5.7. I prayed that Chris would keep me tight because this looked rough. I have a lot of respect for Chris and his ability to lead this section. I got about 15 ft up and my left tool slipped. I peeled, but only fell 2 or 3 feet thanks to Chris's great belay. I got back on the rock pulled myself up the last few feet and could finally see Chris.
I told him my hand was broke. he told me he had frostbite.
We soloed to last pitch to the ridge line. It was beautiful. a narrow ridge line straight up to the summit. cool exposure, amazing views of the ice fields and surrounding mountains. I don't remember feeling the pain in my hand for that 10 minutes it took to get to the summit.
We continued over the top without stopping on the summit, we knew we needed to get down. At this point we drank some water and roped up to the descent. it was 7:00pm - we were officially behind our intended pace. the descent took longer than it should have. I was wasted, having not eaten since around 2:30 am when we first got on the glacier(yes, I’m an idiot). we did have footprints to follow which made things much easier. Chris moved well on the decent and pushed me to move faster in areas were avalanche were a strong possibility. I think he bonked toward the end of the glacier and we were both moving very slow. We were careful going down, no sense in stupid mistakes at this point. We got to the car a little after 1:00am. we'd been moving for 24h 15min.
I just read an email from Brian O. in response to Chris's trip report [0]. he listed the 3 most important things in mountaineering.
- come back alive
- come back friends
- summit if possible
I agree 100%. we came back alive, we came back friends (of course there's stress at times while climbing, but that’s part of the experience), and we made the summit. We planned for a 20 hour day. I broke my hand, Chris got frostbite, we got way off route, and still made it down in 24 hours. did that 4 hours ruin the trip for me? of course not!
Yes, there are things I’d do differently (like eat the food in my pack). But if I had to do it all over again and I knew it would take 30 hours and I would break both my hands I’d still do it.
The mountain was incredible. the experience taught me a lot. I learned that you can make your body do more than you think is possible. I thought I’d nearly hit my limit on Rainier [0], looking back I wasn't even close. In the first 48 hours we spent in the ice fields we were climbing for 32 of those hours. This was right after doing a very hard hike in Banff the day before. and I probably only consumed 600 calories in those 48 hours in the ice fields. I’ll say it again not eating was stupid, I can't think of a less intelligent thing to do while climbing a mountain. But I did learn what my body will do when it doesn't have any other options.
I feel that it was a successful trip. maybe I’m wrong. I do tend to look at the positive side of things. but I had a good trip, I learned a LOT, we got up a mountain we'd been talking about for a couple years, and the only that I had to sacrifice to get those things were sore legs, a busted hand, and a slightly bruised ego. I've very comfortable with that trade.
Maybe i'm looking at it wrong, who knows. i'd be very interested in any feedback from the other people in this email though. it'd be great if i could hear everyones opinion on it.